Volumetric images play an increasingly important role in medical diagnosis including cancer treatments such as site directed chemotherapy and radiology. Volumetric images are being generated by a multitude of different devices, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners, see for example Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,358, or Computed Tomography (CT) scanners, see for example Patients' support installation for a tomographic X-ray apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,388, or certain C-Arm devices, see for example C-Arm computerized tomography system, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0284601.
A certain class of these modalities, such as the CT scanner computes the volumetric images from a series of 2D projections from different angles, see for example (i) Methods and Apparatus for Reconstruction of 3D Image Volumes From Projection Images, U.S. Pat. No. 7,876,944; (ii) Method of Reconstructing Computer Tomography (CT) Volumes Suitable for Execution on Commodity Central Processing Units (CPUS) and Graphics Processors, and Apparatus Operating in Accordance with those Methods, U.S. Pat. No. 7,778,392 and (iii) Method of Reconstructing Computer Tomography (CT) Volumes Suitable for Execution on Commodity Central Processing Units (CPUS) and Graphics Processors, and Apparatus Operating in Accordance with those Methods, U.S. Pat. No. 8,107,592, which references (i)-(iii) are herein expressly incorporated by reference in their entireties.
A recent advance in the field is the development of a Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT) scanner which generates volumetric mammography images, see for example Integrated multi-mode mammography/tomosynthesis x-ray system and method, U.S. Pat. No. 7,869,563, which is herein expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety. Similar to CT or C-Arm devices, the DBT devices acquire a number of 2D X-Ray images, or 2D projections, from different angles. From these projections a volumetric image is computed.